Wednesday

Lots of colors going on there. I thought spinning a true 3-ply would look nice. But it made for a kind of crazy-colored yarn:

Some lengths are violet, some lengths are orange, some are brown. And then every mixture of all the colors:

It will be... interesting to see how this knits up. But what I do love about this yarn is how round and bouncy the three ply turned out. It's superfine merino and the singles came out pretty even (I spun all 4 oz nearly at once) and the final spiral, cork-screw look of the yarn is great.

Superfine merino might be at the top of my Favorite Fiber to Spin list!

Tuesday

The house is nearing completion. We will be moving in 30 days. I've been spending, planning, stressing, packing (rinse and repeat until the point of near-hysteria).

Front of the house:

Back of the house:

Looking down at the house from the hills:

A two-tiered rock wall they've put in at the end of the house (using rocks that they had to smash in order to pour the foundation). Can't wait to see what kind of plants I manage to put in and around here:

Garage floor poured:

Looking into the house from the garage. That's a 2nd fuse box for the house (the other is in the basement). I think there got to be too many fuses in one location, so the contractor put another in the garage- which contains the garage lights, and septic controls and probably the generator if we get one.

Wednesday

I do love true three-plies. I just need to figure out which colors/colorways work best as a three ply. This worked well because all the colors ranged from blue to purple to rose. Colors in the name neighborhood on the color wheel.

This is a 5+ oz of worsted weight yarn. Love getting big skeins like this from the extra large bobbins on my Ashford Joy :) Joy Joy Joy Joy!

Oh yeah, before I forget, I picked up the fiber at last November's Green Mountain Fiber Festival at Ellen's 1/2 Pint Farm booth.

Tuesday

I've bought a couple doily books the feature beautiful, intricate, heirloom-quality doily patterns. But before I tackle any of those, I need to feel more comfortable crocheting. I decided to try a SIMPLE doily pattern that appears to work best with colorful, self-striping sock yarn:

Hasn't been blocked yet. Will probably wash, pin it out and maybe even iron it under a damp towel. I'm not too worried about the seam- I can always put a vase or bowl on the doily and point the seam at the wall where no one will see it.

I have another 50gr ball of this same yarn and might try a similar-but-different doily pattern for it. Not ready for light, solid, crochet cotton yet.

Also, guess what? This is pattern is a 6-stitch repeat. Guess what number isn't divisible by 6? 106.

So, make sure your cast on is divisible by both 4 and 6. Unless you want to fudge it a bit and do some increasing or decreasing from the ribbed edges to the main body.

Since I was using worsted-weight yarn, I cast on and worked 120 stitches. If you were to use a chunkier weight of yarn, you might want to cast on something like 108. For dk or fingering weight, maybe try 134. Just use multiples of 12.

Friday

8oz of 70% wool and 30% seacell from Creatively Dyed Yarn, which I picked up a Rhinebeck last fall...

Spun into a shiny, bulky two-ply.

Love the colors of this. I kind of regret spinning it so thick (wanted to instant gratification). If I had spun this into fingering weight, it would have been gorgeous yarn for a large shawl. But, I can still make a gorgeous hat and mittens.

Wednesday

I've been spinning like crazy lately. Here's 4oz of merino from FatCatKnits in the Clay Pigeons colorway:

Spun into ~218 yards of light worsted-weight two-ply:

And a close-up (color is a bit more accurate here):

I've donated this skein via a fund raiser on Ravelry for a cat named Lucky. He was born without eyelids, which isn't common but not completely unheard of. People are raising money for him to get the surgery he needs. If you'd like to read more about him or donate via ChipIn, go to this website. From what I've read about Lucky, he's so super sweet and so cute.

So, I donated my handspun to the raffle and bought some raffle tickets myself. Hopefully we can bring some good luck to Lucky.